Harry was an advocate of cultural appropriation.

Formally trained by the Irish Clock DancersHarry Swinton was the undisputed champion goat and winga dance form that mixes tap dancing with historically black dance piece of cake dance. Swinton knew the Irish were disgusted by his shameful black additions to the normal dance of their homeland. But because the star of the hit musical “In Old Kentucky,” Swinton didn’t care. Every night after his performance, Swinton challenged the very best Irish tap dancers, black cakewalkers, and anyone within the audience to a dance battle. Whoever beat him won a gold medal and bragging rights over the very best stag and wingman in America. And every night, Swinton won…

Until he met Luther.

Luther was not a supporter of cultural appropriation.

Luther Robinson was not formally trained, but from the age of 5 he danced cakewalking, clogging and buck dancing. He was raised formerly enslaved womanso Luther knew that cakewalking originally made fun of the white people’s way of dancing. He knew that “buck dancing” referred to “flat feet”dancing to the buck jig of unruly Irish immigrants”, which Carolina Gullah Geechee described as “Bukra.” Although Luther hated his name, creator Constance Valis Hill notes, “One thing he (Luther) had in abundance was courage..” He didn’t care about medals or roles. When he accepted Harry’s challenge on the Bijou Theatre in Brooklyn on March 30, 1900, Luther wanted something different.

Harry’s crown.

Luther entered the competition under his brother’s name—Billy—and immediately began “calling” Harry. Luther ran off a gauntlet of New York’s biggest Irish dancers before facing the buck-and-wing king within the finale. Harry walked on stage and sprinkled a layer of sand on the ground, which added a scuttling sound to his buck-and-wing. To the Irish cloggers, it was shameful. The audience thought it was revolutionary. Luther had seen it done 1,000,000 times. He began by dancing on the bottom. When Luther began showing off his talent and athleticism, the audience went wild. The judges later said that they had never witnessed such “speed and clarity.” The Irish dancers watched in awe, planning to steal the brand new technique. In one night, Luther transformed a historically white dance genre right into a memory. Modern dance scholars credit clock dancing with giving birth to clogging, which gave birth to buck and wing, which gave birth to many American dance genres from jazz to hip-hop. Historians later noted that Luther’s contribution to bop was “precise and specific… He got him on his feet, dancing in an upright position and swinging.” For the next 50 years, critics hailed Luther as “The King of American Dance.” But these historians, scholars, and critics were fallacious. Luther was not an innovator or a co-creator. He was not even a king.

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Luther was a murderer.

The moment the judges awarded Luther the gold medal, Irish tap dance became a relic of the past. Buck and wing were dead. Every dancer—black or white—needed to be reborn into something recent. Harry Swinton’s profession was dead (within the film adaptation of “In Old Kentucky,” Luther played the old Swinton role). Perhaps the one thing that survived the explosive debut of this recent “tap” was the stolen stage name of the 22-year-old Luther:

Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.

Rachael “Raygun” Gunn is the Bill “Bojangles” Robinson of Olympic breakdancing.

Before becoming the oldest dancer to compete in the primary ever Olympic breakdance competition, the 36-year-old b-girl received formal training in white dances including ballroom and ballet. With moves like The Caucasian Kangaroo, the Epilepsy Slide, and — my favorite — the Silly ShuffleRaygun managed to stun Black Twitter and mix traditional breakdancing with an Outback Steakhouse version of b-boying. Her performance wasn’t rude or offensive, slightly embarrassing. Watching her Caucasian convulsions rating zero points within the Olympics was like listening to Iggy Azalea freestyle or watching local weather presenter “make your move.”

But Raygun will not be an advocate of cultural appropriation.

Although there is no such thing as a universally accepted definition of the term, cultural appropriation normally refers back to the misuse of art, terminology, or cultural artifacts by someone who doesn’t acknowledge the cultural roots. The Crocodile Dundee of Dance holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies and has lectured on the topic cultural policy of breaking. Gunn is not any different than a durag-wearing Lithuanian b-girl whose nickname sounds a little bit too very like the n-word for my taste (at the least she selected “Nick” and never Nickker”). Raygun wasn’t scary, she just buckdanced and clogged in front of Bojangler. She did

“I never intended to beat these girls at what they do best,” Gunn said. Independent“I wanted to move differently, be artistic and creative, because how many opportunities do you have in your life to do that on an international stage? … Sometimes it speaks to the judges and sometimes it doesn’t. I do my thing and it represents art. That’s what it’s about.”

That’s not the purpose.

As considered one of five pillars of hip-hopBreakdancing is a historically black dance genre. Just as step dance has Irish and white American influences, hip-hop has Latin, African, and international influences. But the emcees, b-boying, DJing, graffiti, and knowledge haven’t made hip-hop a worldwide phenomenon. Its worldwide popularity is basically on account of its roots in black American culture. While breakdancing became an Olympic sport because hip-hop is global, the recognition, history, and cultural contributions of black American music, art, fashion, language, and dance that preceded hip-hop have laid the groundwork for the genre’s global appeal. Hip-hop is global.

However, Olympic breakdancing will not be a dark art. It is a product of sports entertainment that’s historically a dark genre. It was included within the Paris Olympics to “attract younger social media viewers and provide them with a new level of excitement,” in response to the president of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach. Of course, after they say “younger, social media audiences,” they do not mean funny memes on black Twitter. He was talking about individuals who like plantation art and Shirley Temple music. He was talking about individuals who like black art without the pain.

what is the point. And that is why the IOC killed Olympic breakdancing. Just just like the organizers of the Paris Olympics selected breakdancers to draw individuals who don’t watch the competitions hula hoop Or underwater balletthe organizers of the Los Angeles Games “decided to incorporate cricket, squash, lacrosse, baseball, softball and flag football within the 2028 Games“The Olympic Games in Los Angeles don’t need a break.

One thing America has an abundance of is the commercialization of black art.

To be clear, it didn’t die. Like all black art, the genre evolved. But by disconnecting itself from the culture and folks who influenced it, it was reduced to a cultural artifact. Just as blacks had already moved on to “racial music” when Sam Perkins “discovered” rock and roll, pop-locking and windmills were eventually replaced drink too‘ and second line AND shaking.

Raygun and her fellow breakdancers are as hip-hop as Vanilla Ice or Post Malone. They are classically trained dancers competing for medals as a part of a show. They were simply imitating something black people did. They were pre-Bojangles buck dancers. They are masters of 1 small element of the culture that blackness has spawned. But their shortcomings don’t have anything to do with their ethnicity, nationality, or cultural background. They have every thing to do with

I do not regret the dearth of black defenders on the Olympics any greater than I disapprove Elvis’s impersonation of Sister Rosetta Tharpe or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing religious songs with a Negro theme or Eric Clapton listed as considered one of the “biggest blues guitarists of all time.“The Olympic Breaking symbolizes a particular era of a particular thing that black people once did; the people or culture that created it.

But there may be a priceless lesson hidden beneath Rachael Gunn’s story. Imagine being formally schooled in the basics of an art form by the very best and brightest white artists. Imagine becoming so good at what white people have taught you that you finally turn out to be an international celebrity. Imagine writing your thesis, performing world wide, teaching others, and being chosen to compete against everyone else who learned a white thing from white people. Now imagine knowing that at any moment, all the basics, creativity, and artistry you’ve gotten dedicated your entire life to could possibly be rendered obsolete and banished to the dustbin of antiquity by the courage and incredible power of the black imagination.

The Olympic break could also be dead, however the culture, influence and creativity that inspires admiration world wide won’t ever die.